Open Notes for the Beggar Girl
by Jirubee
Summary: Rin wanders off and listens to the sweet melodies of the shamisen as she choses the path to take either with Sesshomaru-sama, or with the human world she doesn't understand. Set post canon 5 years. Drabble/Oneshot


**An:** _I normally don't write Sesshomaru/Rin fiction, but I enjoyed this very much. It's just a short drabble-one shotabout her coming to terms with her feelings. I hope that you guys enjoy and thank you for all of the well wishing and endless support during all of this. _

_Love Jiru_

Shamisen chords plucked softly against the balmy night. The evening laid heavy, draped with sapphires and dubious reminders of dwindling daylight.

The wind howled in tune to the open notes played by nimble fingers as Rin dipped her toes into the onsen behind an old ochaya.

Kaede-sama had let her be as the time drew near for her to choose the path she would walk upon the rest of her life. As it were, she stared at the reflection rippling in the gentle wake.

Her cherubic face was thinner, womanly in comparison to the child she had always seen. Her Lord would come soon, and the answer she sought was easily found. She could no longer deny him, or what his efforts and protection had brought her.

He was a kind soul beneath the furrowed expressions over his triumphantly stoned facade. Kindred to her in many ways, perhaps. She was the only one that was graced with seldom smiles and a gentle embrace before her rest. Jaken had nary seen such a thing and was sent away during times of quiet amidst the harrowing turmoil.

And as she grew, Kagome-sama had taught her how to be a young lady, brushing her hair and dressing her nobly - in fine silks and ornate combs. She had been thankful upon the miko's return and held her breath on the nights she listened to the quiet cries that came from the home she shared with the hanyou Lord. Even the pious had yearning. A lesson that she had learned well was to not deny her feelings.

A blush settled on her cheeks as she pinched her lip between her teeth in embarrassment. She had never thought about such things, but her age betrayed her. She could count the times on her small fingers all the times she had pretended to be a bride.

She has thought of marrying the young taijiya should he have been so bold, yet he disappeared to lands further than Musashi for his studies and found another. It had been clear that he had been a friend and nothing more. His sister tried desperately to make him choose his destiny, and when he did she was proud as a mother.

Rin smiled sadly at the rivulets of dark hair that danced across her cheeks. She was wrought with such steadfast emotion. This melancholy was offset by the sweet voices singing of lovers over moons as arrows drew fire into their hearts.

It was a story she had learned well, and hummed the verses as she closed her eyes. The Eastern Lord, the hanyou sealed and rebirthed by his maiden's hands...

Rin had adored how Kagome-sama was the beautiful woman, chaste and fearless to the treachery of the warring era. She was the lion tamer, and to an effect, Rin felt as though she was a mirror.

She had tamed the voracious beast that killed without mercy, pillaged for his pride and destroyed to overthrow his boredom with blood.

Sesshomaru-sama, bestowed life unto her in sympathy. That same sympathy allowed her to strip the layers of his heart until it stood bare. The gift that was given to her lungs, her dying heart and suffering form made her worship natural, and equal. He was upon no pedestal, no monolith to be greeted by the sun's bright offering. Beneath his attributes, he was merely a man that kept her around to protect, salvage and love.

She wondered how deeply that love ran, and to what extent that it preceded. Was it affectionate and romantic like the adoration his half-kin gave to his human lover? Or was it the love a father gave his daughter?

Since she had grown into her new body, she had aspired to know the answers to her questions and sought refuge in the quiet townships outside of her village.

She was no longer a beggar girl. She was a Lady. A Lady that had no idea of the political workings of youkai, or standing other than what she had been exposed to.

Claiming that right was no more hers than it was for Kagome-sama to give her life back to the hollow woman she was before. It saddened her bones and wilted her soul to listen to the last verse being dribbled in resonance through the forest-line.

When it was over, the moon would hang justly as she made her final choice. Her hands brushed over the dewy cat-tails and damp ground, wishing they would soothe the aching in her heart.

Hesitantly, Rin reopened her dark eyes to see her Lord illuminating her reflection with an awkward serenity.

Absent years swelled against her crescent lashes, holding them still as not to let them fall. She sharply turned, keeping her eyes focused upon the narrow orbs gleaming down upon her.

Her cheeks were ablaze as he read her uncertainty and deliberately stood silent. She watched his smooth, white hair drape his new clothing - something made of golds and darker reds for the upcoming harvest. His mokomoko-sama was larger, moving slowly as any parasite to its host.

Swallowing, the girl stood tall on her feet and brushed away the wrinkles from her elaborate kimono. "Sesshomaru-sama, am I unacceptable?" She asked on

baited breath.

The man barely moved, save for the concern ladden in his eyes. "Why you would assume such a thing is beyond any idea I could have. I find it unjust that you would escape the old woman's village to sit alone."

The daiyoukai needn't say he was worried, or use danger as a tool in his wording. The woman knew what he had insinuated and thought better than to be smart with her choices.

"I had to come and think. InuYasha-sama knows where I am. He wouldn't have let anything happen to me." Rin cooed softly, unaware of the strife that cut through her Lord's marrow.

He snarled silently, grating his pride on the will of his kin was like feeding a snake's poison to an infant. "Rin, tell me that you have not picked up on InuYasha's dreadful habits in your time away."

The girl grinned to herself as she brushed her bangs from her dark eyes. Even through the dim light peering Sesshomaru-sama's reflected such light and pale pallor of the moon's sea and glistened so softly in the forest. She barely thought of it - which wasn't the case by many - to wrap her arms around his waist and breathe in the earthy scent on his clothes. He had been near a fire, perhaps where they burned maple. The stories clothes could tell.

The man was humbled and placed a clawed hand upon her head and drew her near. All of the flittering tunes playing in the old inn shuddered with the sound of laughter and applause.

She couldn't comprehend the world outside of that small clearing as she gripped tightly to his obi. It was then that the answer came rolling over her steadfast heart.

What she sought in this revered beast was innocent. Sesshomaru-sama always came to her, always loyal and protective... She raised her eyes and found his cheeks, for the first time blanched with color and smiled.

When the morning unfurled, she would go westward and endure the travels that were meant for her. Her Lord lifted her chin, capturing her mouth softly. It was affection only she would know that so many had sought.

All of the years of suffering were erased from her history as the Lord swept her off her bare feet, escorting her across the starry plains.

Beneath them, Old Baba and his halfling kin sat along the delapidated fence at the edge of her village. Both watched the flittering visage across the distant sky, and looked to one another with knowing glances.

It hadn't been a surprise the path that she had chosen.


End file.
